Collections of September 11 In Culture

Books
Our list of September 11-related books, from former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen's memoir "Strong of Heart" and the children's book "Bravemole" to the collected "Portraits of Grief" from the New York Times.

Film and Video Documentaries
This list of film documentaries includes both short features and full-length
documentaries made about September 11. Some include footage from that
day, while other features focus on reaction after the attacks
and different ways people have commemorated the date.

Museum Exhibitions
This list of museum exibitions (which ran at the time of the first anniversary of 9/11) focusing on September 11
includes all the exhibitions in New York City as well as some prominent showcases at the Smithsonian and
other museums out of town.

Songs
A collection of songs written about September 11. The songs
come from many genres and include a broad range of emotional
and political reactions to the September 11 attacks. Find out more about
the music and listen to some audio clips.

Television After 9/11
Since the September 11 attacks, television has approached the tragedy in different ways.
Aside from the 24-hour news coverage in the hours and days after, September 11 has also
been addressed (and not addressed) in shows as diverse as "Third Watch" and "Politically Incorrect."

Theater
Our list of plays and other theatrical productions
that respond to September 11 includes shows dealing with the aftermath of
September 11. Previously exhibited plays are listed along with features that ran during the first anniversary of the attacks.

Visual and Performing Art
Our list of visual and performing art related to September 11
includes paintings and murals, photography exhibitions, dance and performance art.

Gotham Gazette Articles

Lincoln Center's Lessons for Ground Zero (08/20/03)
At the same time that Lincoln Center is "breaking up," there are plans to include a cultural center at Ground Zero. Martha Hostetter offers a list of mistakes made by Lincoln Center that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation can avoid.

Artists Talk About September 11 (05/10/02)
Five New Yorkers in the arts discussed life after
September 11 in a panel that was part of the Tribeca
Film Festival. Moderated by talk show host Jon Stewart,
painter Karen Batten, performance artist Spalding Gray,
actress Susan Sarandon, and playwright Wendy Wasserstein
talked about their personal reactions to the events of
September 11th and how it has affected their work as
artists.

Latest News

With a Collage of 9/11 Audio Clips, Artists Create a Ground Zero Walking Tour CD - Sep 11, 2004
From the hundreds of calls and audio clips they collected, the Kitchen Sisters created "The Sonic Memorial Project," created from hundreds of phone calls and audio clips related to 9/11, has been turned into an audio walking tour of the Trade Center site: "Ground Zero: A Sonic Memorial Soundwalk."
(New York Times )

Marking 9/11's Anniversary on City Island - Sep 11, 2004
New York has its ends of the earth, odd little places so psychically removed from the rest of the city that they barely heed the urban scat. Places like City Island, that Bronx curio of a community lingering like an afterthought in the chop and sway of the Long Island Sound. But it is the second week in September, the third anniversary, and remote City Island is still New York City.
(New York Times )

Football Star to Sing At 9/11 Anniversary Ceremony
- Sep 10, 2004
A former football star, Morris Robinson will provide the soundtrack for Friday's ceremony at ground zero marking the third anniversary of 9/11.
(New York Times )

Image of Twin Towers Remains Throughout City - Sep 9, 2004
They are lost, of course. But they have not disappeared. Three years after it seemed that the name and image of the twin towers would be mournfully expunged from the cityscape, the World Trade Center survives. Not on the skyline, but on street signs and shopping bags and book covers, in Fire Department insignia and the logo of the Alliance for Downtown New York, in a subway station and a parking garage, at the gateway to SoHo and in the lobby of an apartment building that was especially hard hit on Sept. 11, 2001.
(New York Times )

Frederic Schwartz: Designer of Two 9/11 Memorials - Sep 9, 2004
Frederic Schwartz is standing on a peninsula at Liberty State Park where ground is to be broken tomorrow for the 9/11 memorial he has designed for New Jersey, only three-and-a-half hours after ground is broken in Westchester County for the 9/11 memorial he has designed there. But for a moment, his sad eyes are not focused on the empty sky across the Hudson River where the World Trade Center is supposed to be.
(New York Times )

Art Exhibit Traces Children's Recovery from 9/11 - Sep 9, 2004
The magic marker drawing of an empty baseball diamond adorned with two little yellow crosses told Allison Hobbs just how much her 12-year-old son, Steven, misses his dad, who was killed on 9/11.
(New York Daily News)

Photographing Ground Zero, Minute by Minute - Sep 8, 2004
In the fall of 2001 when the dust and ash from the World Trade Center were still in the air, Jim Whitaker, a documentary filmmaker, decided to photograph everything happening at ground zero. By the spring of 2002 three cameras were pointed at the pit, each taking one shot every five minutes, round the clock. Months later, three more cameras were added. That was the beginning of Project Rebirth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a historical record of the rebuilding.
(New York Times )

Covering the Terror, Again - Aug 25, 2002
Media coverage of the September 11 one-year anniversary will dwarf that of previous remembrances for the Oklahoma City bombing, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
(Newsday)

Theater Artists Commemorate 9/11 - Aug 21, 2002
One year after the terrorist attacks, nearly 150 theater artists will commemorate Sept. 11 with "Brave New World: American Theatre Responds to 9/11." The star-studded theater marathon, consisting of about 50 short plays and songs responding to the tragedy, will run Sept. 9 through Sept. 11 at the midtown performance venue Town Hall.
(Newsday)

More Than 150 Sept. 11 Books to Hit Shelves - Aug 19, 2002
Ranging from glossy photography books to terrorism primers, more than 150 books about Sept. 11 and every issue surrounding it are flooding bookstores for the one-year anniversary. The publishers themselves admit there are too many books, and say they expect only mediocre sales. But bookstores, buoyed by strong sales from the earlier Sept. 11 books, are ordering nearly every book out there, even if only one or two copies.
(Crain's New York Business)

A TV Rush, at Times Crass, Over Sept. 11 - Aug 19, 2002
With the first anniversary of the national trauma little more than three weeks away, news organizations are gearing up. Newspapers and news magazines are planning special sections or series. But it is broadcast journalists, whose medium demands immediacy, who may be feeling most competitive for access to the people they believe can help recapture the collective memory of last year's horror.
(New York Times)

Smithsonian Struggles With 9/11 - Aug 13, 2002
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's cell phone and baseball cap, a stairwell sign from the World Trade Center, a piece of limestone from the Pentagon, a uniform from a Navy officer who rescued a Pentagon victim. Those are some of the items that will be on display when the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History opens its exhibit, "September 11: Bearing Witness to History," on the anniversary of the attacks.
(Associated Press)

Broadway Shows To Be Closed September 11 - Aug 6, 2002
Many Broadway theaters will go dark on Wednesday, Sept. 11, the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Traditionally, theaters offer matinee and evening performances on Wednesdays. The following shows have announced there will be no performances that day: "Aida," "Beauty and the Beast," "Chicago," "42nd Street," "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," "The Graduate," "Into the Woods," "Les Miserables," "The Lion King," "Mamma Mia!," "Noises Off," "Oklahoma!," "Rent" and "Urinetown."
(Newsday)